Social organizations "going out": analysis of China's civil society in a cross-border dimension

Abstract

The economic and social transformation that has characterized China in the last decades has been accompanied by a diversification in the interests of domestic social organizations, which have recently begun to seek new possibilities abroad and to actually "go out". Bearing in mind the specificities of the discourses on China’s civil society and the peculiarities of its relations with the state, the thesis analyzes the internationalization process of domestic social organizations. The main purpose is to discover whether the varying level of intimacy of the relations they maintain with the state leadership constitutes a key variable for assessing their operational capacity in an International setting. After an introductory presentation of the international definition of NGO, which is later adapted to the specific case of China, the dissertation continues with considerations on China's emerging civil society and on the features of social organizations “going out”. Finally, one case study illustrating the involvement of Chinese social organizations in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake is presented. The case study is aimed at assessing whether and to what extent the relationship between the state and social organizations impacted their humanitarian work in this context. An analysis of the factors underlying the operational capacity of Chinese social organizations in Nepal is carried out in order to ponder the significance of the “state-organization relationship” factor among others that sustain such capacity.